Vodafone preps £8bn bid for SFR

Wants Vivendi's stake

Vodafone is getting ready to make a bid for Vivendi-controlled French mobile phone company, SFR.

According to the Financial Times the offer could top £8bn, as Vodafone attempts to gain a controlling interest in a mobile phone operation in France. Vodafone already owns 32 per cent of SFR, a major mobile phone operation in France with around a third of the market.

By mid morning shares in Vodafone were down 3.5p (3.4per cent) at 100p.

This latest news follows hard on the heels of last week's confirmation that Vodafone is to purchase Vivendi's 50 per cent stake in mobile portal Vizzavi for E142.7m. Vizzavi was set up two years ago as an all singing, all dancing multi-platform portal designed to pump out Vivendi's content to punters.

No one from Vodafone was available for comment at the time of writing. ®